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How The Evolution Of Video And Image Software Will Change Small Business

True or false? Online video and images are useful to small businesses primarily as website decor and low-budget YouTube commercials.

The answer is false — and if that fact is surprising, the truth behind just how much more value video and images can add to a business is a downright jaw-dropper.

That’s exactly what Maria Ross of the San Francisco, California-based branding and business consultancy Red Slice found when looking for a way to grow her services without outgrowing her business model. Video ended up providing the answer.

“My business is really just me,” she says. “You can only scale yourself so much. I didn’t have anything between my $15 book and a $2,800 consultation session. I was looking to package up some of my work at a lower price point.”

Her solution? Ross created a seven-module training course called Brand Bootcamp — and it wasn’t just a webcam of Ross sitting in front of her computer. Using software called Camtasia, she was able to give a presentation on her computer and record the entire thing, including her narration, to a digital video file.

“The book was fine, but they [clients] also wanted me,” Ross says. “This way, I was able to give them me, and it also gave me something to increase my revenues.”

Red Slice’s experience is just the tip of the screen-capture and video-recording iceberg. In fact, the Lansing, Mich.-based TechSmith Corporation responsible for Camtasia has built a business around the concept. What began with an internal company tool more than 20 years ago has grown into a suite of software designed to help businesses get more from their media. The company’s primary tools — Snagit for images and Camtasia for video — allow users to capture images and record video of whatever is on their computer screens.

How else can that boost your bottom line? Here are just a few of the ways:

“When somebody is really busy, they’re Googling different things, and they don’t have time to stop and save each [search result],” she says. “Instead, you just capture it and come back to Snagit later. It remembers information about each capture.”

Editing tools help users blur information for security purposes or add arrows and other graphics for communication and collaboration. Wood describes how one nonprofit client uses Snagit to do sporadic research on the fly.

“She uses it to gather inspiration for her annual report,” says Wood. “If someone else has a good one, she grabs it, and then she has it to use later.”

Meaningful Marketing

How much do you trust those notes your client was taking during your sales pitch? For that matter, how much do you trust they’ll read the 10-page case study from your last client’s success?

“It’s a great way to record that interaction, and then as a follow-up, send the video as a review,” says Lovellette. “It’s a nice value-added thing for those sales prospects.”

Lovellette describes one financial services client who uses video to tell his story and his successful clients’ stories in a more personal way.

“For his firm, who he is, is what they’re selling,” he says. “Using video is a much more effective way to communicate that.”

Internal Training

“In a small business, it’s not really feasible to pull everybody into a meeting to communicate with them all at the same time,” says Lovellette. Rather than consuming your entire day repeating the training course or policy updates in shifts, one recorded presentation can do it all in one fell swoop. “Video allows them to consume that content when they have time,” Lovellette adds.

In case there might be any concern staffers would tune out the tutorial, Camtasia has the ability to embed interactive hot spots. The links can take users to different pages, confirming they’re paying attention, and can also administer quizzes to be sure viewers understand the content.

“From a training perspective, it reduces the amount of time it takes new employees to get up to speed,” says Lovellette.

Who knew your own computer screen had so much value, just waiting to be captured or recorded? The best part is, you don’t have to be a tech genius to get a good ROI.

“I always thought it was really technical and I wasn’t going to be able to use it,” recalls Ross, who knew of Camtasia from her previous corporate job, but never tried it herself until recording her Red Slice videos. “I was pleased. It’s fairly easy for anyone with basic technology skills to do these things.”

How hard are your small business’ images and video working for you? If they’re merely adorning your website, odds are, they could be doing a whole lot more.

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Comments

Video marketing is definitely an under utilized tool. Camtasia is a great product and is affordable. There is a new product too, that I just discovered today from this news release: http://www.newswire.net/newsroom/financial/70103-Does-Easy-Video-Suite-Josh-Barlett-Live-The-Hype-Easy-Video-Suite-Review.html

I know for a fact that video marketing is going to become very common place and part of every SMB marketing campaigns.

Social media websites really play a great part in the mass media communication. It allows us to be well-rounded about all sorts of things that is basically happening in the entire universe but it also has its downside. To completely know your limitations in using social media is very essential.

Camtasia really works best for me at the first place and yes I agree that this one is very affordable. Video marketing though played ordinary and so common nowadays but I still believe that this one can still work and very captivating ways of ads in the next five years or more. It just needs a little creativity.

From the time social media had taken into place, business marketing was made easier compared with the traditional styles. As experts are more developing software for much better operation, marketing of business will surely make a big change.